Research Laboratories

Labs and Centers

Research in the department is driven by world-class labs and centers. Expert faculty and staff partner together to innovate advanced software and hardware applications to provide solutions for real-world problems.

Center for Intelligent Networked Systems

Wireless communication lies at the heart of powerful new applications offering a rich combination of voice, data, multimedia, and more. Delivery of information-data among networks is evolving to more intelligent systems, and solutions to the most challenging problems of information security involve establishing a cooperative and intelligent infrastructure of networks. The Center for Intelligent Networked Systems (iNetS) studies this vast, compelling field to unlock the secrets of network intelligence, extend the functional capabilities of wireless communications, and provide intrinsic network security. They apply that knowledge with a long-term lens in order to engineer innovative solutions with global impact.

Information Networks and Security Lab (iNFINITY)

The current research and development focus of the iNFINITY group includes cognitive radio and dynamic spectrum access networks, wireless security, text mining, social networks, image/video steganography and steganalysis, and joint source-channel coding, error-resilient coding for wireless networking. It has successfully developed and demonstrated promising technologies in these areas with support from government agencies and industries. Those interested in supporting the group's efforts should feel free to contact one of itsfaculty members. Visit the iNFINITY Website!

Visual Information Environment

Currently at VIEL, research efforts are focused on two major directions:

Data networking: The group is working to solve the two major challenges of today's Internet -- quality of service and security. The team is investigating the approach with joint (or cross-layer) designs of various networking components, including source coding, channel coding, encryption, routing, queuing, and media access control.

Data analysis: The goal is to effectively extract useful information from rich media content by applying signal processing, statistics and pattern recognition techniques on various visual information to perform detection, classification, segmentation, archiving, as well as distributed decision based on data networks.

Embedded Systems & Robotics

Research projects have included the study of 'Bio-inspired Self-Organizing Self-Adaptive Multi-Agent Systems.' With the advance of technologies in networked intelligent systems, we will soon be surrounded by large collections of autonomous systems, which are equipped with sensors and actuators, aware of their local environment, communicate freely, and organize themselves to perform the required actions and services. While these ubiquitous complex systems open up fascinating new areas for our life, they have the problem of their controllability. Traditional approaches to solving complex system problems are centralized, mainly focusing on the decomposition and distribution of a problem into multiple subtasks, and the collective construction of a solution to the problem.

Robotics & Automation

The Robotics and Automation Laboratory was founded in August 2005 by Prof. Yi Guo and is engaged in research in autonomous mobile robots and control systems. The laboratory develops fundamental understanding in autonomous mobility and robot cooperation, and provides computational algorithms for increasing cooperative mobility of mobile robotic systems. Control system synthesis spans multi-agent systems, communication systems, electric power systems, and nano-scale systems. Visit the Robotics and Automation Laboratory Website!

Data Analysis and Information Security

As wireless and sensor networks continue to have an important impact on everyday life and integrate themselves in the social fabric, network infrastructures will increasingly become tempting targets for malicious attacks. Furthermore, with the huge amount of information transmitted over networks and eventually displayed in the Internet, the main question that people ask concerns what should constitute "fair use" of the information. The Data Analysis and Information Security (DAISY) Laboratory focuses on addressing the problems in information security, system privacy, and data integrity using statistical approaches and machine learning techniques, as well as building test beds to facilitate research in these areas. Visit the DAISY Laboratory Website!

Wireless Networks

The current research project is titled "Cross-Layer Cooperation for Energy Efficiency in Wireless Sensor Networks: Game Theoretic Solutions". This project aims to develop cross-layer resource management algorithms for energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks. Cooperation between layers by exchanging pertinent information is exploited for optimizing the algorithms. Furthermore, distributed algorithms are proposed in which each sensor makes localized, independent decisions to adapt its transmission parameters (powers, access probability, routes, aggregation level, etc). The interactions between sensors, as well as the overall behavior of the proposed protocols can be analyzed based on a game theoretic framework. The focus of the project is on analyzing the tradeoffs in designing energy-efficient protocols, involving interference management, data aggregation and sleeping schedule design. Visit the WNET Laboratory Website!

Hattrick Laboratory

The Hattrick Laboratory supports the core engineering courses in electronics taken during the sophomore year. The laboratory provides 18 student project stations, each equipped with a set of measurement instrumentation interfaced to a PC. The PCs of the lab access a server associated with the lab, with a variety of support software - e.g., LabView and Circuit Maker (a version of PSpice with enhanced graphical interface).

Each project station's instrument cluster consists of a two-channel digital oscilloscope, a multimeter, a function generator, and a programmable power supply. These HP instruments are interfaced to a PC via GPIB cables, allowing the instrument settings to be programmed from the computer and allowing the measurements of the instruments to be read into the computer. The National Instrument's LabView software tool suite is available to provide development of programs to control and read the instruments. In addition, each project station includes a manual power supply for general use.

Microelectronic Systems Laboratory

The Microelectronic Systems Laboratory (Burchard 123) was developed to support the ECE required course on microprocessor systems. The laboratory provides Motorola HC12 microprocessor project development systems and supporting software. Twelve student workstations are provided.

This laboratory also supports laboratory projects implementing digital systems using FPGAs. The Xilinx FPGA software tools and Xess FPGA project development boards are used to allow students to implement significant digital systems using FPGAs.

A Cisco network system is used to support undergraduate experiences in networked systems as well as Cisco certification (the latter provided by personnel from Structured Networks, Inc.). Several routers and switches are combined with firewalls and network management software tools.

The Microelectronics Systems Laboratory is managed by Profs. Yan Meng and Hong Man.

Francis T. Boesch Electronics Laboratory

The Francis T. Boesch Electronics Laboratory (Burchard 213) has been established as an "open" laboratory with a broad collection of instrumentation that can be used by students to explore projects of their own choosing.

The laboratory is managed by Profs. Stu Tewksbury and Bruce McNair.

Systems Prototyping Laboratory

The Systems Prototying Laboratory (Burchard 125) provides students with opportunities to create multi-layer printed circuit boards, to attach contemporary high pin-out circuit packages (from BGA through surface mount), and to perform testing of the resulting systems.

This laboratory also provides students with opportunities to experiment with advanced digital signal processing algorithms, using, for example, Pentak VME-based DSP systems. Applications include advanced topics in wireless network systems.

The laboratory is open to both undergraduate and graduate students with appropriate permissions from the Lab manager (Prof. B. McNair)

Advanced Digital Systems Laboratory

The Advanced Digital Systems Laboratory (Burchard 315) provides the Mentor Graphics microelectronics systems development software suite, running on a Sun Cluster computer. For access to this laboratory, approval by the lab manager is required. The laboratory is managed by Prof. Haibo He.

Networked Systems Laboratory

A joint undertaking by the Departments of ECE, Computer Science, and Telecommunications Management, this laboratory provides a significant physical network infrastructure through which students (undergraduate and graduate) can become familiar with contemporary themes in advanced digital networked systems.